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Access Couchbase Data with Entity Framework 6

This article shows how to access Couchbase data using an Entity Framework code-first approach. Entity Framework 6 is available in .NET 4.5 and above.

Entity Framework is an object-relational mapping framework that can be used to work with data as objects. While you can run the ADO.NET Entity Data Model wizard in Visual Studio to handle generating the Entity Model, this approach, the model-first approach, can put you at a disadvantage if there are changes in your data source or if you want more control over how the entities operate. In this article you will complete the code-first approach to accessing Couchbase data using the CData ADO.NET Provider.

Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Form Application. This article uses a C# project with .NET 4.5.

Run the command 'Install-Package EntityFramework' in the Package Manger Console in Visual Studio to install the latest release of Entity Framework.

Modify the App.config file in the project to add a reference to the Couchbase Entity Framework 6 assembly and the connection string.

To connect using the Login method, set User, Password, and Server to the credentials for the account and the address of the server you want to connect to.

Add a reference to System.Data.CData.Couchbase.Entities.EF6.dll, located in the lib -> 4.0 subfolder in the installation directory.

Build the project at this point to ensure everything is working correctly. Once that's done, you can start coding using Entity Framework.

Add a new .cs file to the project and add a class to it. This will be your database context, and it will extend the DbContext class. In the example, this class is named CouchbaseContext. The following code example overrides the OnModelCreating method to make the following changes:

Remove PluralizingTableNameConvention from the ModelBuilder Conventions.

Create another .cs file and name it after the Couchbase entity you are retrieving, for example, Customer. In this file, define both the Entity and the Entity Configuration, which will resemble the example below:
using System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;
[System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema.Table("Customer")]
public class Customer {
[System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Key]
public System.String Id { get; set; }
public System.String FirstName { get; set; }
}

Now that you have created an entity, add the entity to your context class:
public DbSet<Customer> Customer { set; get; }

With the context and entity finished, you are now ready to query the data in a separate class. For example:
CouchbaseContext context = new CouchbaseContext();
context.Configuration.UseDatabaseNullSemantics = true;
var query = from line in context.Customer select line;